Apple tempts and threatens developers at WWDC

This year's keynote at Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference
was a shot fired directly at naysayers claiming that a lack of new
hardware signals Apple's decline.

True, Apple did not release any new gadgets. But the keynote
gave the developers who ultimately will build apps for those
gadgets every reason to make Apple their liege, right down to a new
programming language. Along with those new tools came a long list
of features carrying an implicit warning to more entrepreneurial
engineers: Don't try having your own ideas and not play with us,
because we will take them, we will do them better and we will crush
you in the process.

"Swift is fast, it is modern, it is designed for safety, and it
enables a level of interactivity in development that you've never
seen on the platform," said Apple head of software engineering
Craig Federighi, who owned the crowd with his geeky charisma.

Opening up
While Swift is a major pitch to developers to marry themselves to
Apple and its way of making apps, the company took big steps toward
opening up deeper layers of its platform as well. Apps soon will be
able to talk directly with one another in iOS. The TouchID
fingerprint sensor on the iPhone 5s will be opened to apps beyond
those made by Apple. A new graphics engine will give games direct
access to the iPhone's powerful A7 chip, Federighi promised.

More important than opening up its existing devices, however, is
Apple's support for the next generation of gadgets centred on
health and home. Cook didn't announce any new health-tracking or
smart-home devices. Instead, Apple is releasing a software
foundation that ties all those devices together inside Apple
devices everyone already uses.

By taking time to build the operating system layer first, Apple
is seeking to assure developers that they won't have to worry about
security and interoperability issues-just build cool new stuff and let Apple
take care of the rest. The implied message: Apple is ready and
willing to support developers building the hardware of the
future.

What's not the future
But the company wasn't shy about telegraphing to developers what's
not the future. The new iCloud Drive for file-sharing and syncing
takes direct aim at Dropbox, which Steve Jobs famously wanted to
buy. Even the new iCloud photo features are an open assault on Dropbox's new app Carousel for uploading and storing pictures.
New features for Messages, which Federighi described as the
most-used app on iOS, mimic Snapchat and WhatsApp, leading WhatsApp
co-founder Jan Koum to
tweet: "[V]ery flattering to see Apple 'borrow' numerous
WhatsApp features into iMessage in iOS 8 #innovation."

But originality isn't Apple's priority. Any attempt to compete
with Apple in a space it considers its own will be answered with
Apple's comparable version. Though Apple will advertise these new
self-made additions as better, the quality isn't paramount. The
real advantage is that they come pre-installed.

The recent history of mobile is full of examples of third-party
apps doing Apple's version one better and succeeding. Users
probably won't stop using Dropbox or Snapchat on their iPhones,
just like they won't stop using Google Maps. But Apple has never
been more relentless at trying to persuade the developers whose
loyalty it needs that its deeply integrated collection of PCs,
tablets, and smartphones is the most complete, self-contained,
usable platform in existence, the one that should be foremost in
their minds as they ponder which master to serve first.

At the end of the session, Cook closed the keynote with an
almost defensive summation of Apple's less iterative, more closed
approach to developing its products. "Apple engineers platforms,
devices, and services together. We do this so we can create a
seamless experience for our users that is unparalleled in the
industry."

"This is something only Apple can do," Cook continued. It
sounded like a promise. But it also was a warning to anyone
thinking of building a startup based on a product that adds a
feature that seems to be missing from Apple's platform. Rest
assured, Apple was saying: it won't be missing for long.